Thursday, August 20, will mark 17 years since U.S. Navy warships fired 75 Tomahawk cruise missiles against Sudan and Afghanistan.

“The Worker,” newspaper of the Workers Party, U.S.A., reported that in Sudan, the missiles completely destroyed a pharmaceutical factory on the outskirts of the capital, Khartoum, killing one employee and wounding many others. In Afghanistan, reports documented that dozens of people were either killed or wounded as a result of the attack.

After the attack, U.S. officials, including President Clinton, Secretary of Defense Cohen, and Secretary of State Albright all stated that the missile strike was “just the beginning” in a new “long term war against terrorism.” While promising further military attacks, Clinton stated that “our efforts cannot and will not end with this strike.” U.S. Senators and Congressman voiced practically unanimous support for the attack, praising Clinton and the U.S. military.

The pretext under which the U.S. government launched its missile strikes was as a response to the recent bombings of its embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. But international public opinion had already exposed the so-called “evidence” which the U.S. used to frame its targets by linking them with a so-called “terrorist network” allegedly responsible for the embassy bombings.

Regardless of whatever “evidence” and accusations were presented, the military attack by the U.S. government against sovereign countries was nothing more than a barbarous act of state terrorism. Random acts of terror are, of course, justly condemned by democratic-minded people everywhere. But such criminal acts must be dealt with by the authorities in the countries in which these acts were committed. Instead, the U.S. government acted as if it had appointed itself the judge, jury and executioner in an international anti-terror campaign.

The truth is that under the banner of fighting a “war against terror,” U.S. imperialism is striking out against its opponents, tearing down the entire edifice of international law and openly declaring that Might Makes Right. Labeling the peoples as “terrorists” is in reality directed against any country or people who, for whatever reason, oppose the dictates of the U.S. monopolies, i.e. the dictates of U.S. imperialism.

In the manner of the oldstyle racists and colonialists, U.S. imperialism has declared that it can determine the economic and political system of every country and send its troops to every corner of the globe.

This war program is a product of the crisis and decay of the capitalist-imperialist system. In particular, U.S. imperialism is trying to shift the burden of the economic crisis onto other countries and peoples, trying to maintain its global dominance by militarizing every situation and imposing its will through force of arms.

To wage its wars against the peoples throughout the world, the U.S. government is also stepping up its attacks against the American people. The two big political parties and the monopoly-controlled media have joined ever-more closely together to beat the war drum and promote a political atmosphere of war hysteria and chauvinism.

In addition, the government is usurping more arbitrary, dictatorial power – strengthening its apparatus of repression and a legal edifice for violating the inalienable democratic and human rights of the people. The recently passed U.S.A. Patriot Act criminalizes dissent and political opposition, threatening to return the country to the witch-hunt McCarthyite days and government prescribing of political association and political thought. Since 2001, tens of thousands of local and foreign born Americans have been arrested, harassed and persecuted.

The capitalists are also using the war program to further loot the public treasury, cut social spending, increase the exploitation of the workers and put everything at the disposal of the biggest monopolies. Hundreds of billions of taxpayers’ dollars are poured into the war machine while federal, state and local governments are slashing monies for education, income-support programs, health clinics, and other vital public services.